Little White Finds and Farewell, Toronto

Soon the 35th Toronto International Film Festival will wind down, the eerily clean Canadian streets will be vacated of blazer-sheathed international film executives, and the bohemians of Kensington Market can reclaim their eclectic cafes from lost entertainment journalists looking for free wifi. Seated over a massive plate of tragically delicious chopped liver at Caplansky’s delicatessen, I ruminated over Toronto as a whole and wondered what rocks I’d left unturned. The joy and privilege of any film festival is the thrill of finding little gems that may or may never be coming soon to a theater near you. With its massive roster of films, Toronto certainly provides enough opportunities, and little pockets of buzz made me long for a chance to see some of the lesser known films like Submarine, Sarah’s Key, I Saw The Devil, and Outside the Law (which apparently has had the French rioting since Cannes). Fortunately, my melancholy musing was sweetened by the memory of catching Little White Lies at a quiet afternoon screening. Because it stars the beautiful Marion Cotillard, you might just have the chance to catch this refreshing French repast at an equally deserted neighborhood art house someday, and you should.Little White Lies is definitely a Gallic gem, and not just because you get to watch the immaculate Marion pout with a full glass of burgundy. The latest film by French actor-turned-director Guillaume Canet (who debuted with the impressive Tell No One in 2006, and recently starred in real-life Cold War thriller Farewell), Little White Lies follows a group of friends who spend a joie de vivre-filled vacation at the eldest and most successful friend’s beachside summer house. This could make for a boringly bourgeois exercise in self-congratulation if the opening scenes didn’t set the tone for just exactly what type of people these “friends” are. After the frontman of the group is hit by a truck on his way back from a night of coked-up clubbing, the “friends” pay him a tearful hospital visit as he fights to stay coma-free. Once the obligatory show of emotion is over, they all awkwardly decide it would be pointless to cancel their annual vacation because there’s nothing they can really do for him—no, really. I mean, he wouldn’t want you to spoil your vacation just because he has iron splits in his thighs? Right? What follows is a complexly textured mix of farce and drama that generates from the care and delight Canet takes in measuring his characters’ massive imperfections. (Imperfection, so you know, is forbidden in Hollywood lest you make your heroes seem like jerks.) There are laughs, there is wine—believe us, there is wine—and there is an endless French summer of sexual confusion, narcissistic tomfoolery, and the sentimental celebration of friendships which flicker between noble motives and base needs, like an old light bulb in a dusty laundry room that somehow lasts for decades. That Canet can jump from a standard mystery thriller to an ensemble comedy which plays like the French Big Chill bodes well for any moviegoing audience unafraid of subtitles and messy relationships. Granted, the film can linger a little too long on certain scenes and beats, but when the summer is as lazy as it is in France, that is to be expected. The emotions and laughs are there, and at the end you feel as if you’ve escaped to a desert island with real friends—annoying, entertaining, self-absorbed, and sweet-when-they-can-swing-it friends. And isn’t that why we usually go to the movies?

So, that concludes my coverage of the 35th annual TIFF. It’s back to the states where the no-holds-barred, hi-gloss combat that is Oscar season will commence shortly. With mellow wine-fueled buzz, I bid you adieu, Toronto.